But, besides these home difficulties, there were troubles abroad, both in the East and in the West. In the East, the complications inseparable from a dominion like that of ours in India, where constant expansion seemed to have become a law of its existence, had involved us in a war with a new enemy, the warlike Afghan nation; in the West, both Jamaica and Canada were in a state threatening insurrection. Indeed, the troubles in Jamaica had been the immediate cause of that resignation of the ministry in 1839 which has already been mentioned. Measures adopted in the English Parliament with reference to the termination of that apprenticeship system which, as we have seen, formed a part of the bill for the abolition of slavery, and another for the regulation of the prisons in the island, had given such offence to the colonial Assembly, never very manageable, that the members passed a resolution that their legislative rights had been violated, and that they would abstain from all exercise of their legislative functions, except such as might be necessary "to preserve inviolate the faith of the island with the public creditor, until" (by the rescinding of the resolutions, etc., of which they complained) "they should be left to the free exercise of their inherent rights as British subjects." And this resolution was seconded by an insulting protest, in which they drew an offensive comparison between the state of crime in the island and that which prevailed in Great Britain, taunting the British Parliament with the murders and acts of incendiarism which terrified Ireland night and day, with the murders of Burke and Hare in Scotland, with the law of divorce and crim. con. trials in England, and "a Poor-law which has taken millions from the necessities of the destitute to add to the luxuries of the wealthy." The Governor dissolved the Assembly, but that which succeeded re-adopted the resolutions of its predecessor, and the ministers, in consequence, brought in a bill "to suspend the existing constitution of the island for a limited number of years, and to provide that during that interval its legislative functions should not be exercised by a Governor, a Council, and a House of Assembly, but should reside in the Governor and Council alone." The emergency was too great and undeniable, the remedy proposed was also too unprecedented in its stringency, to be dealt with without the gravest deliberation; and the House of Commons accordingly gave the matter the patient consideration which became both it and themselves. They allowed the island to appear by counsel against the bill, and listened for many hours to an elaborate defence of the conduct of the Assembly, which if it failed to change the intention of the ministers, convinced Sir Robert Peel and his party that their measure was doubtful in its justification and impolitic in its severity. He pointed out that "the bill was neither more nor less than one for the establishment of a complete despotism-one which would establish the most unqualified, unchecked, unmitigated power that was ever yet applied to the government of any community, in place of that liberal system which had prevailed for upward of one hundred and fifty years." And, though he did not for a moment question the power of Parliament to pass such a measure, he greatly doubted the policy of such an exertion of it. A somewhat similar measure affecting Canada they had been compelled to enact in the preceding year, and he feared lest "it might seem to be coming to be a practice of Parliament to suspend a constitution every session." And he quoted a speech of Canning, delivered fifteen years before, in which that eloquent statesman, a man by no means inclined to a timorous policy, had declared that "no feeling of wounded pride, no motive of questionable expediency, nothing short of real and demonstrable necessity, should ever induce him to moot the awful question of the transcendental power of Parliament over every dependency of the British crown. That transcendental power was an ordinance of empire, which ought to be kept back within the penetralia of the constitution. It exists, but it should be veiled. It should not be produced on trifling occasions, or in cases of petty refractoriness or temporary misconduct."
And Sir Robert, "looking at all the papers before the House, could not say that there was here any vindication for bringing forward this transcendental power." He asked whether "they had ever treated with so much severity a conquered colony amid the first heat of animosity after the contest." And he traced the history of our government of the island back to the time of Charles II., pointing out (as Burke had formerly argued with respect to our Colonies in North America) that "Jamaica owed its colonization by British subjects to the conquest that was made of it by the arms of Cromwell; that its first English population was composed of those who, disgusted with the excesses of the civil wars, there found a refuge," and who had carried with them that attachment to liberty which, as early as 1678, had led them successfully to repel the attacks made on the privileges of their House of Assembly by the ministers of Charles II. He warned the House, also, that if this measure were passed, "a sympathy for the people of Jamaica would be excited throughout the other West Indian possessions of the crown." And, while fully admitting that the conduct of the Assembly had been "foolish and unjustifiable," he still recommended that it should be treated in a conciliatory spirit, which as yet had not been shown toward it.
The government carried their proposal by a majority of no more than five in a very full house, a success which they regarded as a defeat, and, as has been already mentioned, resigned. But as the state of the question and of the island did not admit of delay, on their resumption of their offices they introduced a fresh measure, which the Conservatives again curtailed of its most severe clauses, and which, in the form in which it was eventually passed, gave the Assembly time to reconsider its conduct, and, without the humiliation of confessing itself guilty, to give a practical recantation of their offensive resolutions, by resuming its work of legislation, any farther delay of which would on many subjects be very mischievous to the island itself. The distinct assertion by both parties of the power of the Parliament to inflict even the severest penalty enabled the Houses to take this conciliatory course without loss of dignity; while the stern disapproval of the conduct of the Assembly which the Conservative leader had expressed, even when pleading for a milder treatment of it, convinced the colonists that any protracted contumacy would be dangerous, and would deprive them for the future of all title to even the modified protection which on this occasion had saved them.
In the discussion of these transactions, Peel, as we have seen, had alluded to the affairs of Canada, which had been of a still more serious complexion; since there the discontent of the colonists in the Lower Province had developed into armed insurrection. We have seen that, from the first moment after the country had passed into our possession, there had been almost constant dissensions between the old French colonists and the English immigrants who crossed over both from England and from the colonies on the southern side of the St. Lawrence in the early part of the reign of George III. The desire of terminating these divisions, which had their root in a difference of religion as well as of race, the French settlers being Roman Catholics, had been one of the chief motives which had led Pitt in 1791 to divide the country into two provinces.[253] And for many years the scheme was fairly successful; but, toward the end of the reign of George IV., the political excitement caused by the agitation in England of the question of Catholic Emancipation, and subsequently of Reform, spread across the Atlantic to the Canadas; and the French portion of the colonists, who almost monopolized the representation in Lower Canada, began to urge the adoption of changes utterly inconsistent with the existing constitution of the colony. In the hope of compelling the compliance of the home government with their demands, in 1832 and the following years they refused to vote the necessary supplies; and, gaining courage, as it were, from the contemplation of their own violence, and under the guidance of a leader of French extraction, a M. Papineau, who scarcely concealed his hope of effecting the complete severance of the Lower Province from the British dominion, they proceeded to put forth farther demands, which they regarded as plausible from the apparent resemblance of the changes which they required to the system of the English constitution, but which, to use the words in which Sir Robert Peel described them,
would have established "a French republic." The most important of them were that the Upper or Legislative Council should, like the Assembly, be rendered elective, instead of, as had hitherto been the case, being nominated by the crown. And another asked that the Executive Council should be made responsible to the Assembly, in the same manner as in England the ministers of the crown were responsible to Parliament. As it was at once shown that the ministry at home had no intention of granting these demands, Papineau collected a band of malcontents in arms, with whom he took possession of one or two small towns, and ventured even to measure his strength with the Commander-in-chief of the province, Sir John Colborne, one of the most distinguished of Wellington's comrades and pupils. His force was utterly routed, and he himself fled across the frontier to New York. A similar outbreak, excited in the Upper Province by a newspaper editor, was crushed with equal ease and rapidity.[254] And the next year, 1838, Lord John Russell brought forward a bill to suspend the constitution of the colony, and to confer on a new Governor, who was at once to proceed thither, very ample powers for remodelling the government of the province, subject, of course, to the sanction of the home government. In the previous year he had succeeded in carrying some resolutions announcing the determination of Parliament not to concede the demands of the Assembly of the Lower Province, which have been already mentioned. And the reasons which he gave for this course are worth preserving, as expressing the view recognized by Parliament of the relations properly existing between the mother country and a colony. It was on a proper understanding of them that he based his refusal to make the Executive Council in Canada responsible to the Assembly. He held such a step to be "entirely incompatible with those relations. Those relations require that his Majesty should be represented, not by a person removable by the House of Assembly, but by a Governor sent out by the King, responsible to the King, and responsible to the Parliament of Great Britain. This is the necessary constitution of a colony; and if we have not these relations existing between the mother country and the colony, we shall soon have an end of these relations altogether." And he pointed out the practical difficulties which might reasonably be apprehended if such a change as was asked were conceded. "The person sent out by the King as Governor, and those ministers in whom the Assembly confided, might differ in opinion, and there would be at once a collision between the measures of the King and the conduct of the representatives of the colony."
The plan of sending out a new Governor free from any previous association with either of the parties, or any of the recent transactions in the colony, was, probably, the wisest that could have been adopted. Unfortunately, it was in some degree marred by the choice of the statesman sent out, Lord Durham, a man of unquestioned ability, but of an extraordinarily self-willed and overbearing temper. He drew up a most able report of the state of the provinces, combined with recommendations of the course to be pursued toward them in future, so judicious that subsequent ministers, though widely differing from his views of general politics, saw no better plan than that which he had suggested; but, unhappily, the measures which he himself adopted, especially with respect to the treatment of those who had been leaders in the late rebellion, were such manifest violations of law, that the government at home had no alternative but that of disallowing some of them, and carrying a bill of indemnity for others. He took such offence at their treatment of him, though it was quite inevitable, that he at once resigned his appointment and returned home. But the next year the Queen sent down a message to the Houses recommending a union of the two provinces (a measure which had been the most important, and the very foundation, of his suggestions), and Lord John Russell introduced a bill which, as he described its object, he hoped would "lay the foundation of a permanent settlement of the affairs of the entire colony." The main feature of the government policy was the formation of "a legislative union of the two provinces on the principles of a free and representative government," and the establishment of such a system of local government as amounted to a practical recognition of the principle so earnestly repudiated, as we have seen, by Lord John Russell a year or two before. It was not, perhaps, fully carried out at first. Lord Sydenham, who had succeeded Lord Durham, reported to the home government, as the result of a tour which he had taken through a great part of the country, that in the whole of the Upper Province, and among the British settlers of the Lower Province, "an excellent spirit prevailed, and that he had found everywhere a determination to forget past differences, and to unite in an endeavor to obtain under the union those practical measures for the improvement of the country which had been too long neglected in the struggle for party and personal objects." But of the French Canadians he could not give so favorable a report. Efforts were still made by some of the old Papineau party to mislead the people; but he was satisfied they would not again be able to induce the peasantry to support any attempt at disturbance. It was natural that that party should still feel some soreness at the utter failure of their recent attempts and the disappointment of their hopes; and affairs took the longer time in being brought into perfect order and harmony through a strange mortality which took place among the first Governors-general. Lord Sydenham died the next year of lockjaw, brought on by a fall from his horse; Sir Charles Bagot was forced to retire in a state of hopeless bad health after an administration equally brief; two years later, Sir Charles Metcalfe, who succeeded him, returned home only to die; and it was not till a fourth Governor, Lord Elgin, succeeded to the government that it could be said that the new system, though established five years before, had a fair trial.
Fortunately, he was a man admirably qualified by largeness of statesman-like views and a most conciliatory disposition for such a post at such a time; and he strictly carried out the scheme which was implied by the bill of Lord John Russell, and to a certain extent inaugurated by Lord Sydenham, selecting his advisers from the party which had the confidence of the Legislative Assembly, and generally directing his policy in harmony with their counsels; so that under his government the working of the colonial constitution was a nearly faithful reproduction of the parliamentary constitution at home. Such a policy was in reality only a development of the principle laid down by Pitt half a century before, and warmly approved by his great rival, that "the only method of retaining distant colonies with advantage is to enable them to govern themselves."[255] And since that day similar constitutions have been established in our other distant dependencies as they have become ripe for them-in New Zealand, the Cape, and the Australian colonies-almost the only powers reserved to the home government in those colonies in which such constitutions have been established being that of appointing the governors; that of ratifying or, if necessary, disallowing measures adopted by the colonial government; and, in cases of necessity, that of prescribing measures for the adoption of the local Legislatures, and even of compelling such adoption, in the event of any persevering opposition. The act of 1850, which established a constitution in Victoria, went even farther in the privileges it conferred on the colonists, inasmuch as it gave power to the Legislative Council to alter some of its provisions, and even to remodel the Legislative Council and Assembly. It may be doubted whether this last concession did not go too far, since in more than one important instance the government of that great colony has availed itself of it so liberally as to render it necessary to pass a fresh act of Parliament to enable her Majesty to give her royal assent to some of the changes which the Assembly had enacted.[256] Indeed, it cannot be said that the system has worked in every part or on every occasion quite as well as might have been hoped; nor can it be denied that the colonies have occasionally claimed a power of independent action in opposition to the home Parliament in a way to try severely the patience of the home government. After the British Parliament had adopted the policy and system of free-trade, the Canadian Assembly adhered to the doctrine of protection so obstinately that it actually established a tariff of import duties injurious to the commerce of the mother country, and apparently intended as a condemnati
on of its principles. But its contumacy showed how wholly different was the spirit of the British government from that which had prevailed in the last century; for though the home government had unquestionably the right of disallowing the offensive tariff, it forbore to exercise it; and, probably, by this striking proof that it considered a complete recognition of the principle of local self-government more important than any trifling financial or commercial advantage, contributed greatly to implant in Canada and all the colonies that confidence in the affectionate moderation of the home government which must be the strongest, if not the only indissoluble, bond of union.
On the whole, it is hardly too much to say that no more statesman-like, and (if sentiment may be allowed a share in influencing the conduct of governments) no more amiable spirit animates any act of our modern legislation than is displayed in these arrangements for the management of our colonies. They are a practical exemplification of the idea embodied in the expression, "the mother country." A hundred years ago, Burke sought to impress on the existing ministers and Parliament the conviction that, "so long as our Colonies kept the idea of their civil rights associated with our government, they would cling and grapple to us, and no force under heaven would be of power to tear them from their allegiance." In the case of which he was speaking his warning, as we have seen, fell on deaf ears; but the policy of the present reign is a willing and full adoption of them, on a far larger scale than even his farseeing vision could then contemplate. Within the century which has elapsed since his time the enterprise of Britain has sent forth her sons to people another hemisphere; and they, her children still, cling to the parent state with filial affection, because they feel that, though parted from her by thousands of miles and more than one ocean, they are still indissolubly united to her by their participation in all the blessings of her constitution, her generous toleration, her equal laws, her universal freedom.
The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 Page 43